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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Race Preview: Tour de King

An event for everyone from the first-time rider to the seasoned pro taking you for a ride on some of the best back-roads, trails and terrain that Southern Ontario has to offer. This is a great course for mountain bikes, and cyclo-cross bikes with about 10% paved road, 40% gravel road and 50% trail - which equals a 100% fun (less trail for the 35 km)! At the finish line a cycling festival with an amazing kid’s race, band, climbing wall, expo area and barbeque await

So basically it's a 52km bike race that throws a little bit of everything at you, modeled after the immensely successful (and fun!) Paris to Ancaster. Hopefully minus the mud chutes!

What Bike?

I'm a bit confused on this... at first, the description suggested cyclocross, but late details referring to some of the road allowances as "knarly" and the amount of single-track made me consider using my mountain bike. When mountain bike guys use words like "knarly", they often mean something pretty dire!

But... I love my cyclocross bike, and I'm doing this more for fun and to check it out than anything.

Also we went out a couple of weeks ago and hit the singletrack in Durham Forest on the cross bikes just to check it out... it was hugely fun, and I was shocked how comfortable I felt in there. As long as it's not too "knarly", it should be the right choice, and whatever I give up on the "knarly" and single track I should be able to get back on the roads.

Wait... Aren't You Training for a Marathon?

Yes, but I've built cross-training into my plan from the start. I did my long run mid-week (yesterday) to give lots of time to recover, so a couple more short runs this week before the race.

That being said, I'm not really in peak cycling shape right now... my biking has fallen off late in the year as the focus has shifted to running. This will be more of a "B" or "C" race.